A black creature crossing the road.

April 28. 

A. M. — Surveying for Willard Farrar by Walden.

April 28, 2017

While standing by my compass over the supposed town bound beyond Wyman's, Farrar having just gone along northeast on the town line, I saw with the side of my eye some black creature crossing the road, reminding me of a black cat two thirds grown. Turning, I saw it plainly for half a minute. It crossed to my side about twenty-five feet off, apparently not observing me, and disappeared in the woods. It was perfectly black, for aught I could see (not brown), some eighteen or twenty inches or more in length from tip to tip, and I first thought of a large black weasel, then of a large black squirrel, then wondered if it could be a pine marten. I now try to think it a mink; yet it appeared larger and with a shorter body. It had a straight, low, bushy tail about two inches thick, short legs, and carried its tail and legs about on the same level. It was nearly, if not quite, as large as a muskrat. Has the mink such a tail?





Looking for an "old pine stump" mentioned in a deed and digging into a hillock with our hands to discover it, we turned up, amid the red dish virgin mould, — quite turned to soil, — a large body of short, chunked, yellowish ants, say five twelfths (?) of an inch long, with their white larvae (?). I perceived at more than a foot distant a very strong penetrating scent, yet agreeable and very spicy. It reminded me at first of the cherry pectoral; but it was not that; it was very strong lemon-peel. 

The "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" says that the odor of the wood ant will suffocate a frog dropped among them. Are not these the American "wood ant"?

Icy cold northwest wind, and snow whitening the mountains.

H.. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 28, 1857


A large body of short, chunked, yellowish ants, say five twelfths (?) of an inch long, with their white larvae (?). I perceived at more than a foot distant a very strong penetrating scent, yet agreeable and very spicy. See May 19, 1857 (“Digging again to find a stake in woods, came across a nest or colony of wood ants, yellowish or sand-color, a third of an inch long, with their white grubs, now squirming, still larger, and emitting that same pungent spicy odor . . .”)

Icy cold northwest wind, and snow whitening the mountains. See April 28, 1858 ("Blustering northwest wind and wintry aspect. "); April 28, 1855 ("The wind is strong from the northwest"); See also  April 26, 1860 ("the cold weather of yesterday; the chilling wind came from a snow-clad country.")